Russian Aggression Higher than Cold War Era

Former Soviet Fighter Pilot: Russian Jets ‘More Aggressive’ Than During Cold War

DailySignal: KYIV, Ukraine—As the NATO-Russia Council prepared to meet for the first time in almost two years, U.S. and Russian officials traded barbs over who’s to blame for a recent spike in military tensions.

The ambassadorial level meeting set for Wednesday at alliance headquarters in Brussels was to be the first time the format, which comprises NATO and Russian officials, has been convened since June 2014.

Looming over the talks are provocative Russian warplane intercepts. These include a pair of Russian Su-24 fighter jets that buzzed within 30 feet of the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea on April 11 and 12, and a Su-27 fighter jet that performed a barrel roll within 50 feet of a U.S. RC-135 spy plane April 14.

“These kinds of planned maneuvers are especially dangerous because they bring us very close to an unplanned accident,” a former Soviet fighter pilot told The Daily Signal.

The U.S. and NATO say Russia has demonstrated a pattern of military aggression and reckless brinksmanship across Eastern Europe that risks sparking a military conflict.

Russia says NATO’s military buildup on the alliance’s eastern frontier is a threat to Russian national security.

“It was definitely done on purpose, and with the NATO summit in mind,” Oleksiy Melnyk, a former Ukrainian air force lieutenant colonel who served as a fighter pilot in the Soviet air force, said of the aerial antics by the Russian jets in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“Having the same background, I’m sure the pilots were not too young and too stupid to realize that these kinds of maneuvers would create an international scandal,” said Melnyk, now co-director of foreign relations and international security programs at the Razumkov Centre, a Ukrainian think tank.

Beginning in 1986, Melnyk flew Mig-21s for the USSR. He said the intent of the recent Russian intercepts was likely twofold: To send a diplomatic message to NATO that the Baltics are Russian turf and to test NATO’s military responses.

Russia’s current pattern of intercepting NATO ships and aircraft is “more aggressive and more frequent” than what the Soviet Union authorized pilots to perform during the Cold War, Melnyk said.

Under Soviet rules of engagement governing intercepts of NATO aircraft, the recent actions would have been forbidden, he said.

Soviet rules governing air intercepts were tightened after the 1983 incident in which Soviet fighter jets shot down a Korean Air Lines 747. Melnyk described this month’s Russian intercepts as “reckless,” and said Soviet pilots would have been punished for such maneuvers if commanders had not approved them beforehand:

These kinds of planned maneuvers are especially dangerous because they bring us very close to an unplanned accident. And any unplanned accident can have grave consequences.

Underscoring the strain on U.S.-Russian relations after the USS Donald Cook incident, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the American ship could have fired on the Russian jets.

“It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement, that could have been a shoot-down,” Kerry said in an interview with CNN Espanol.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed the U.S. version of the incident was “not consistent with reality” and that the Russian warplanes had “performed strictly in accordance with the international regulations on the use of airspace.”

160420_NATO_Russia1_Peterson

Visitors check out Soviet-era aircraft on display at Ukraine’s State Aviation Museum in Kyiv. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

Eastern Front

NATO-Russian relations chilled in March 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and began providing military support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

A senior Obama administration official told The Daily Signal in an email that Wednesday’s NATO-Russia Council meeting “does not indicate a return to business as usual between NATO and Russia.” The official added:

As a direct result of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, NATO decided to suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation with Russia. However, NATO also decided to keep political channels of communication open at the ambassadorial level and above. This meeting is consistent with that policy.

According to NATO, the meeting was to focus on the Ukraine conflict as well as the security situation in Afghanistan.

The meeting comes as fighting in eastern Ukraine continues to escalate in periodic bursts, threatening a complete collapse of the tenuous Minsk II peace accord.

More than 9,200 Ukrainians have died in the conflict, according to the United Nations.

Buildup

Also on the docket: improved communications between NATO and Russia to prevent incidents such as the air intercepts from sparking a conflict.

Russia has shown a pattern of provocative actions in Eastern Europe, particularly in the Baltics, for more than two years. These include the alleged abduction of an Estonian intelligence officer on Estonian soil in 2014.

In July 2015, NATO officials reported the alliance had scrambled warplanes to intercept Russian aircraft more than at any time since the end of the Cold War. And according to U.S. Navy officials, Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic now matches, and may even exceed, Cold War levels.

Since 2014, the U.S. has boosted its military presence in Eastern Europe to reassure its allies. Troops and warplanes have rotated among NATO countries across the region, and an ongoing exercise to train and equip Ukraine’s armed forces began in summer 2015.

Alexander Grushko, Russia's ambassador to NATO, speaks to reporters after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels. (Photo: Stephanie Lecocq/EPA/Newscom)

Alexander Grushko, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, speaks to reporters after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels. (Photo: Stephanie Lecocq/EPA/Newscom)

Ukraine is not a NATO member state. However, four NATO countries—Canada, Lithuania, Poland, and the U.S.—currently have troops in western Ukraine to train the nation’s military.

In 2014 the White House launched the European Resistance Initiative, pledging $1 billion to bolster U.S. military forces in Europe as a response to Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine.

Recognizing the long-term security threat Russia poses to the region, the White House included $3.4 billion in its 2017 defense budget for the European Reassurance Initiative—a fourfold increase over the $789 million tagged the previous year.

The funds finance more U.S. troops in the region, military exercises with allies, and construction of new infrastructure to house troops and store weapons and military hardware.

The U.S. buildup is intended to shore up confidence among NATO’s eastern members on the reliability of American support; it’s also a strategic deployment of troops and equipment to defend against a Russian attack.

In March 2015, a U.S. Army Stryker convoy traveled 1,100 miles through the Baltic states and across Eastern Europe on an operation called Dragoon Ride.

Thousands of civilians lined the highways waving American flags. At stops along the way, civilians swarmed U.S. troops, shaking hands and taking selfies.

Dragoon Ride was touted as a public relations event to reassure allies about U.S. commitment to defend the region.

U.S. troops on the convoy, however, said a secondary objective was to scout routes and analyze road conditions for the rapid deployment of armor across the Baltics in the event of a Russian invasion.

160420_NATO_Russia2

Ukraine’s State Aviation Museum in Kyiv displays Soviet-era aircraft such as this one. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

Exposure

NATO’s beefed-up military posture along its eastern frontier dates in part from a September 2014 summit in Wales, during which NATO pledged to stockpile supplies and forward-deploy troops in Eastern Europe to repel a Russian attack.

The Obama administration’s defense budget follows through on that initiative, tagging funds to permanently deploy a full armored combat brigade to the region.

Beginning in February 2017, approximately 4,500 troops will rotate every 90 days among Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.

Additionally, 250 tanks, heavy artillery, and armored personnel carriers will be stockpiled across the region.

Even with the increased U.S. presence, NATO’s Baltic states remain vulnerable to a Russian attack. A recent report by the RAND Corporation, a U.S. think tank, concluded that Russian forces could invade to the edge of Estonia’s capital of Tallinn or the Latvian capital of Riga in 36 to 60 hours.

“As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members,” the report said.

The report added that NATO needs seven combat brigades, including three heavy armored brigades, supported with airpower to “prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states.”

Substantial?

The Kremlin has called the U.S. plan for a rotating combat brigade in Eastern Europe a violation of NATO’s pledge not to forward-deploy troops on the alliance’s eastern frontier.

In the Russian Founding Act of 1997, NATO pledged not to station a “substantial” numbers of troops or deploy nuclear weapons among new member states from the former Warsaw Pact.

At the time, Russia criticized the deal for not setting a specific numerical limit on troop numbers. Now, Washington and Moscow are mincing words over whether a U.S. buildup in Eastern Europe would constitute a “substantial” increase in troops.

“We see an unprecedented military buildup since the end of the Cold War and the presence of NATO on the so-called eastern flank of the alliance with the goal of exerting military and political pressure on Russia for containing it,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said April 14, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

In a formal statement on the alliance’s website, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said:

What NATO has done when it comes to reinforcement of our collective defense is defensive; it is proportionate and it is a direct response to what we have seen of Russian aggressive behavior in Ukraine.

BY: Nolan Peterson

Nolan Peterson, a former special operations pilot and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is The Daily Signal’s foreign correspondent based in Ukraine.

Terror Cell in Minnesota

“As described in the criminal complaint, these men worked over the course of the last 10 months to join ISIL,” said U.S. Attorney Luger. “Even when their co-conspirators were caught and charged, they continued to seek new and creative ways to leave Minnesota to fight for a terror group. I applaud the hard work and tireless efforts of the FBI Minneapolis Division and their colleagues around the country.” More detail from the FBI here.

Feds: Minnesota men spoke of terrorist attacks in US

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Some of the four Minnesota men facing trial next month for conspiring to join the Islamic State group had discussed the possibility of attacks in the United States, according to a document filed by prosecutors.

Guled Ali Omar. (credit: Hennepin County Jail) Minneapolis

Prosecutors said one defendant, Guled Ali Omar, talked about establishing a route from the U.S. to Syria through Mexico, then telling the Islamic State group about the route so it could be used to send fighters into America to carry out attacks.

The document, filed Wednesday, is one of many filed in recent weeks as prosecutors and defense attorneys argue about which evidence should be allowed at the men’s trial, which starts May 9.

   

The men – Omar, 21; Hamza Naj Ahmed, 21; Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 22; and Abdirahman Yasin Daud, 22 – have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit murder outside the U.S. Prosecutors have said they were part of a group of friends in Minnesota’s Somali community who held secret meetings and plotted to join the Islamic State group.

Five other men have pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to support a foreign terrorist organization. A tenth man charged in the case is at-large, believed to be in Syria.

The government’s document was filed in response to a defense request that prosecutors be barred from introducing evidence about possible attacks in the U.S.

Last week, Daud’s attorney wrote that, absent any specific evidence that his client threatened the United States, any references to discussions about attacks would be prejudicial. To permit such references, as well as references to the Sept. 11 attacks or exhibits that show violent images of war crimes, “would cause the jurors to decide out of fear and contempt alone,” defense attorney Bruce Nestor wrote.

But prosecutors said audio recordings obtained during the investigation show the defendants spoke multiple times about the possibility of attacks in the U.S. Among them, Omar spoke of establishing a route for fighters, Farah spoke of killing an FBI agent and another man who pleaded guilty talked about shooting a homemade rocket at an airplane.

Prosecutors wrote that they should be allowed to “play for the jury the defendants’ own words, in which they discuss the possibility of returning to attack the United States.” They also said the defendants watched videos and gruesome images, which they also want to play for the jury, and that a blanket ban on mentioning the 2001 attacks is inappropriate, noting that Omar had pictures of the burning World Trade Center towers and Osama bin Laden on his cellphone.

A phone message left with Omar’s attorney wasn’t immediately returned.

The FBI has said about a dozen people have left Minnesota to join militant groups fighting in Syria in recent years. In addition, since 2007 more than 22 men have joined al-Shabab in Somalia.

Terrifying Truth on Who Obama is NOT Deporting

Goodlatte Urges DHS to Deport Thousands of Criminal Aliens with Federal Drug Convictions Set to Be Released Next Month

HouseJudiciaryCommittee: On April 30, 2014, the United States Sentencing Commission approved Amendment 782, which modified the United States Sentencing Guidelines to lower the base offense level for federal controlled substances offenses.  Amendment 782 was made retroactive by the Commission. As a consequence, approximately 2,000 convicted criminal aliens whose sentences were reduced are now eligible for release from the Federal Bureau of Prisons on or about November 1, 2015.

In the letter to Secretary Johnson, Chairman Goodlatte urges Secretary Johnson to remove these criminal aliens from the United States, noting that they are the highest enforcement priority based on the Obama Administration’s own written policy for priority enforcement.

Below is the text of Chairman Goodlatte’s letter to Secretary Johnson.

 

October 20, 2015

The Honorable Jeh Johnson
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

Dear Secretary Johnson:

On April 30, 2014, the United States Sentencing Commission approved Amendment 782, which modified the United States Sentencing Guidelines to lower the base offense level for federal controlled substances offenses.  Amendment 782 was made retroactive by the Commission. As a consequence, approximately 6,000 convicted criminals whose sentences were reduced by the sentencing court pursuant to Amendment 782 are now eligible for release from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on or about November 1, 2015, and approximately 8,500 additional prisoners will be eligible for early release by November 1, 2016.  Of the initial 6,000 inmates who will be released early, a significant number – approximately 2,000 – are criminal aliens.  These aliens are removable from the United States, either because they are unlawfully present or because of their criminal convictions.  In fact, based on their convictions for drug trafficking offenses, such aliens are the highest enforcement priority (Priority 1) for the Department of Homeland Security, based on your own written policy for priority enforcement, issued on November 20, 2014.

During your testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on July 14, 2015, Committee Members questioned you about the early release of aliens under Amendment 782.  In response, you stated, “I’m aware of this issue.  I’m aware of the adjustment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.  I’m aware that a number of individuals will be released as a result.  I’m aware that a number of them are probably undocumented, and we’ve been working with DOJ to do the most effective thing for public safety in that regard.”Given your response, I fully expect that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will issue a detainer with the BOP for each alien expected to be released pursuant to Amendment 782, and that each alien will be taken into custody by ICE, as required by the Immigration and Nationality Act, for purposes of initiating removal proceedings or to execute the removal order of each alien who is already subject to a final order of removal from the United States.

Please confirm whether my expectation will be met and that the Department of Homeland Security is committed to ridding our streets of aliens peddling dangerous and illicit drugs to our children.  Additionally, please provide the following requested information:

    1. The specific number of aliens who will be released early by BOP pursuant to Amendment 782.
    2. Of those alien prisoners, how many have ICE detainers or requests for notification?
    3. Does ICE expect to issue detainers or requests for notification for every alien identified in (1) above prior to the prisoner’s release from BOP custody?
    4. Does ICE expect to take custody of every alien identified in (1) above for the purpose of initiating removal proceedings or to execute a final order of removal?  If not, why not?
    5. Please provide the number of aliens identified in (1) above who will not be taken into ICE custody upon release from BOP and provide an explanation for each alien as to why ICE will not take the alien into custody.

Please provide this information to me by October 30, 2015.  If your office has any questions, please contact Tracy Short, Counsel, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, at (202) 225-3926.

Sincerely,

Bob Goodlatte
Chairman

**** Summary from Breitbart:

An overwhelming percentage of criminal aliens the Obama administration knows are in the U.S. are not detained but are instead living in neighborhoods and communities across the country, according to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).

Central American Gang Members AP

“The American public has been misled by the ‘enforcement priorities,’ ‘deferred action,’ and ‘executive action’ policies of this Administration, which categorize only certain quote, unquote ‘serious’ criminal aliens as worthy of immigration enforcement,” Goodlatte said at a House subcommittee hearing examining the victims of illegal immigrant crime. “However, this Administration’s actions demonstrate that it finds it acceptable to permit even serious criminal aliens to prey on our communities.”

According to the House Judiciary Committee, the Obama administration’s enforcement policies have allowed tens of thousands of criminal aliens to remain in the U.S.

“At least 95 percent of convicted criminal aliens known to [the Department of Homeland Security] are not detained,” Goodlatte said at Tuesday’s hearing.

The Virginia Republican argued against immigration activists’ contention that illegal immigration is a “victimless crime,” stressing that the opposite it true — “illegal immigration has consequences that can be devastating,” he said.

“Americans deserve to know why this Administration would release thousands upon thousands of criminal aliens from DHS custody – despite convictions that included a total of 473 homicide-related offenses, 375 kidnappings, 890 sexual assaults, and 10,731 assaults before their release,” he continued.

Goodlatte took additional aim at advocates and Democrats’ argument that the unaccompanied minors from Central America — who have been flooding across the border illegally by the tens of thousands and largely allowed to remain — are all helpless children.

“It is no coincidence that the spike in gang crime occurred during the same time that thousands of Central American minors were illegally entering at the southwest border. Sixty-four percent of validated gang members arrested in Frederick County in 2015 entered illegally through the southwest border as unaccompanied minors,” Goodlatte said, at the time foreshadowing the testimony of Sheriff Charles Jenkins of Frederick County, Maryland.

Goodlatte’s strong words preceded emotional testimony offered by two hearing witnesses whose children were killed by illegal immigrants.

“By releasing known criminal aliens and refusing to secure our border, the Administration has sent a clear message to the American people that their safety and security are far less important than ensuring that illegally present and criminal aliens will remain here,” Goodlatte added.

Family of Benghazi Victim Finally Receives Benefits

Glen Doherty was part of the quick reaction force consisting of eight U.S. military or former military that left Tripoli in the rush to help rescue the Stevens and his colleagues at the consulate. His task was the same as the task of the 21 CIA personnel at the CIA annex one mile from where Ambassador Chris Stevens’ and the others came under attack. More detail here.

Family of Benghazi victim to receive $400G after CIA expands benefit program

FNC: The family of a CIA contractor killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya will receive $400,000 after the agency expanded survivor benefits for employees and contractors killed in the line of duty overseas in acts of terrorism.

Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL who was working for the CIA’s Global Response staff in Libya at the time of Benghazi, held a standard federal insurance policy that pays a survivor benefit only to spouses and dependents. Doherty, 42, was divorced and had no children, rendering his family ineligible for compensation under the 1941 Defense Base Act, which still requires all overseas contractors including CIA employees to carry disability and life insurance.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the CIA informed lawyers for Doherty’s mother, Barbara, Wednesday that the agency’s policy change had been finalized.

Barbara Doherty told WFXT that she was relieved that the expanded benefit had approved. She also called on Congress to repeal the Defense Base Act.

“It gives me solace that the CIA has done the right thing,” Doherty said. “Now it’s up to Congress to see if they can step up to the plate.”

Legislation introduced last year by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. and Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., would expand the death benefit to include families of all defense employees killed in terror attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, even if they don’t have spouses or dependents.

“It is entirely disrespectful to make [the families] fight through a long bureaucratic process to get the benefits that that heroism has earned,” Lynch told WFXT.

The CIA policy change is retroactive to April 18, 1983, the date a suicide attacker crashed a truck into the front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans, some of whom were CIA officers.

“It wasn’t about the money, at all,” Doherty told WFXT. “It was a fight for [all families], because they didn’t have a voice and we did …that’s what kept us going on, knowing that they would eventually be recognize.”

“I am glad the [CIA] made this decision so the Doherty family and others who have lost loved ones in service to and sacrifice for our country will finally receive the recognition and honor they deserve,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said in a statement.

Doherty’s family filed a $1 million damages claim against the CIA and the State Department in September 2014. The Union-Tribune reported that the family will drop all claims against the federal government in the wake of the expanded death benefit.

**** Glen was part of a Global Response Team in Libya while prior assignments included participation in Special Activities Division of the CIA.

Part of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, the Special Activities Division is thought to include around 150 paramilitaries, pilots and other specialists. When deployed to the field, they typically operate in 6 man or fewer teams, with many a mission carried out by a solo SAD operative. CIA Special Operations Group Paramilitaries often work on joint operations alongside Delta, DevGru, Special Forces etc.

9/11: 28 Pages, Real Evidence?

The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia is in fact complicated and it did not begin with by any measure by the Bush dynasty. As explained on this site recently, conflicts and relationships between the United States, Iran and Saudi Arabia have a long convoluted history. Lawsuits for financial reparations regarding terror attacks and or accidents go back a long way.

 The U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet.

The United States has been helping equip and train Saudi armed forces since U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdulaziz Al Saud struck an oil-for-security alliance in 1945. (More from Reuters)

If anyone has read former U.S. Senator Graham’s (FL) book, Intelligence Matters published several years ago, the contents of the much debated 28 pages is not new. The deeper details of the Saudis in the country at the time before, during and after 9/11 may or may not have damning evidence of full participation in the attack, yet there are connections with regard to Saudi diplomats providing some assistance to 2 of the hijackers. There are some real questions for sure including if it was known at the time that the 2 hijackers were known to the Saudi embassy personnel to be in fact part of the plot or were they telling another story for the sake of financial aid. You must decide for yourself with what is known in open published source.

At question too is the FBI’s involvement from the beginning and later the effort to classify the 28 pages and why in coordination with the Bush Administration. For sure there is much more required to be included to form a summary with regard to the 28 pages, for that we may need to wait a lifetime as it appears Barack Obama is planning to keep these documents classified if Congress passes the legislation to declassify them.

One of the hijackers is in fact a detainee at Guantanamo Bay and may be designated as a ‘never release’.

Al-Sharbi is one of 80 remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His public record includes his graduation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, reported association with other al-Qaeda members and alleged attendance at training camps in Afghanistan.

He is also among the individuals identified in FBI agent Kenneth Williams’ July 2001 electronic communication, sometimes called the “Phoenix EC” or “Phoenix Memo.” With it, Williams attempted—unsuccessfully—to alert the rest of the bureau about suspicions that Middle Eastern extremists were attending flight schools with ill intent, and to recommend a nationwide investigation of the phenomenon.

While those aspects of al-Sharbi’s story have been widely discussed, the FBI’s reported discovery of his flight certificate inside a Saudi embassy envelope buried in Pakistan has not. More here.

Read the summary below for further details as known and permitted to be in open source. with regard to ‘document 17’.

EXCLUSIVE- A Buried Envelope & Buried Questions: Your First Look Inside Declassified Document 17

By Brian P. McGlinchey 

As President Obama prepares to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, his administration is under increasing pressure to declassify 28 pages that, according to many who’ve read them, illustrate financial links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers.

Meanwhile, a far lesser-known document from the files of the 9/11 Commission—written by the same principal authors as the 28 pages and declassified last summer without publicity and without media analysis—indicates investigators proposed exploring to what extent “political, economic and other considerations” affected U.S. government investigations of links between Saudi Arabia and 9/11.

Drafted by Dana Lesemann and Michael Jacobson as a set of work plans for their specific parts of the 9/11 Commission investigation, the 47-page document also provides an overview of individuals of most interest to investigators pursuing a Saudi connection to the 2001 attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Included in that overview is a previously unpublicized declaration that, after the capture of alleged al-Qaeda operative Ghassan al-Sharbi in Pakistan, the FBI discovered a cache of documents he had buried nearby. Among them: al-Sharbi’s U.S. pilot certificate inside an envelope of the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.

Declassified in July 2015 under the authority of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) pursuant to a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) appeal, the document is the seventeenth of 29 released under ISCAP appeal 2012-48, which focuses on FBI files related to 9/11. One of two documents in the series identified as “Saudi Notes,” we’ll refer to it as “Document 17.”

Dated June 6, 2003, Document 17 was written by Lesemann and Jacobson in their capacity as staff investigators for the 9/11 Commission, and was addressed to 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow, Deputy Executive Director Chris Kojm and General Counsel Dan Marcus.

Commission Investigators Posed Two Questions That Linger Today

Lesemann and Jacobson had previously worked together on the 2002 joint congressional 9/11 intelligence inquiry and authored the classified, 28-page chapter on foreign government financing of the attacks. Document 17 outlines how the two investigators proposed to extend their earlier research. The plans include many questions Lesemann and Jacobson felt the investigation should answer.

Two of those questions seem strikingly relevant today, as a declassification review of just 28 pages said to implicate Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks has inexplicably taken three times as long as the entire joint inquiry that produced them, and while a growing number of current and former officials who are familiar with the pages emphatically assert there’s no national security risk in their release.

Lesemann and Jacobson, already veterans of investigating 9/11 with the congressional inquiry, asked:

Document 17 Two Questions

They are two questions Lesemann wouldn’t be permitted to answer: Zelikow fired her first. Her termination had an apparent Saudi aspect of its own: Impatient with Zelikow’s neglect of her repeated requests for access to the 28 pages, she circumvented him to gain access on her own. When Zelikow discovered it, he promptly dismissed her.

9/11 Executive Director Philip Zelikow
Philip Zelikow

Organizationally set apart from dozens of other questions as among the more important, overarching lines of inquiry for their particular avenue of the commission’s work, the significance of the questions’ presence in Document 17 is amplified by the absence of corresponding answers in the commission’s final report.

At some point—perhaps after Lesemann’s determined interest in Saudi links to 9/11 led to her dismissal—someone apparently determined a public study of those questions was beyond the scope of work.

Zelikow’s appointment over the commission was controversial, given his previous friendship with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and the fact he’d served on the Bush administration’s transition team. That history and, once appointed, his ongoing contacts with Bush political advisor Karl Rove, led some to question whether he was willing or able to achieve the high level of impartiality so essential to his role.

The Bush administration’s lack of cooperation with Saudi-related 9/11 inquiries is well-documented. According to Philip Shenon’s book, The Commission:

(Commission member and former Secretary of the Navy John) Lehman was struck by the determination of the Bush White House to try to hide any evidence of the relationship between the Saudis and al Qaeda. “They were refusing to declassify anything having to do with Saudi Arabia,” Lehman said. “Anything having to do with the Saudis, for some reason, it had this very special sensitivity.” He raised the Saudi issue repeatedly with Andy Card. “I used to go over to see Andy, and I met with Rumsfeld three or four times, mainly to say, ‘What are you guys doing? This stonewalling is so counterproductive.”

The Bush family has a multi-generational relationship with the Saudi royal family, with ties that are both deeply personal and deeply financial. Prince Bandar bin Sultan was the Saudi ambassador to the United States on 9/11, and is considered a personal friend of George W. Bush.

With many investigatory leads pointing toward the Saudi embassy in Washington, some feel Bandar merits thorough investigation—or that he may even be directly implicated in the 28 pages that Bush controversially redacted.

Saturday, appearing on Michael Smerconish’s CNN program to discuss a Saudi threat to divest itself of some $750 billion in U.S. Treasury securities if Congress passes a law clearing a path for 9/11 victims’ lawsuit against the kingdom, former Senator Bob Graham said, “I believe that there is material in the 28 pages and the volume of other documents that would indicate that there was a connection at the highest levels between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 19 hijackers.”

A Redacted Question from Document 17
A Redacted Question from Document 17

Asked by 60 Minutes if the 28 pages name names, commission member Lehman replied, “Yes. The average intelligent watcher of 60 Minutes would recognize them instantly.”

(If you watched the impactful prime time 60 Minutes segment on the 28 pages that aired last week and don’t remember Lehman’s intriguing statement, it’s because 60 Minutes oddly relegated perhaps their most newsworthy quote of all to this web extra.) There are many more examples of the U.S. government’s thwarting of Saudi-related inquiries, both outside and inside the work of the 9/11 Commission.

A Buried Flight Certificate

The FBI’s 2002 discovery of a U.S. pilot certificate or “flight certificate” inside a Saudi embassy envelope was news to Graham, who co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry that produced the 28 pages. 

Al-Sharbi Excerpt Document 17

“That’s very interesting. That’s a very intriguing and close connection to the Saudi embassy,” said Graham, who has been championing the declassification of the 28 pages and a perhaps hundreds of thousands of pages of other documents since 2003.  

Since people often re-use envelopes and citizens of any country may have legitimate reasons for correspondence with the embassies of their government in foreign countries they live in, the Saudi embassy envelope isn’t by itself conclusive of anything. 28Pages.org couldn’t find any other history of the FBI’s find or of the government’s evaluation of its significance.

GitmoAl-Sharbi is one of 80 remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay. His public record includes his graduation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, reported association with other al-Qaeda members and alleged attendance at training camps in Afghanistan.

He is also among the individuals identified in FBI agent Kenneth Williams’ July 2001 electronic communication, sometimes called the “Phoenix EC” or “Phoenix Memo.” With it, Williams attempted—unsuccessfully—to alert the rest of the bureau about suspicions that Middle Eastern extremists were attending flight schools with ill intent, and to recommend a nationwide investigation of the phenomenon.

While those aspects of al-Sharbi’s story have been widely discussed, the FBI’s reported discovery of his flight certificate inside a Saudi embassy envelope buried in Pakistan has not.

Additional Excerpts from Document 17

The al-Sharbi paragraph excerpted above is in a section titled, “A Brief Overview of Possible Saudi Government Connections to the September 11th Attacks.” Comprising a list of individuals of interest to the investigators, it begins with names central to the well-reported San Diego cell, including future hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, purported Saudi government operative Omar al-Bayoumi, Saudi diplomat Fahad al-Thumairy and Osama Bassnan, a former employee at a Saudi mission in Washington, D.C. who received “considerable funding from Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa, supposedly for his wife’s medical treatments.”

Here, we directly excerpt many entries from the list, with an emphasis on those that are more suggestive of a link to the Saudi government. Much of the information is already well-known.

It’s important to note that any given association described in these documents may well be benign, that witness statements aren’t always accurate, and that a previous government assertion of a fact may have already proved or may yet be proved wrong.

Omar Al-Bayoumi: Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, provided September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar with considerable assistance after the hijackers arrived in San Diego in February 2000. He helped them locate an apartment, co-signed their lease, and ordered Mohdhar Abdullah (discussed below) to provide them with whatever assistance they needed in acclimating to the United States. The FBI now believes that in January 2000 al-Bayoumi met with Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi diplomat and cleric, at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles before going to the restaurant where he met the hijackers and engaged them in conversation. Whether or not al-Bayoumi ‘s meeting with the hijackers was accidental or arranged is still the subject of debate. During his conversation with the hijackers, Al-Bayoumi invited them to move to San Diego, which they did shortly thereafter. Al-Bayoumi has extensive ties to the Saudi Government and many in the local Muslim community in San Diego believed that he was a Saudi intelligence officer. The FBI believes it is possible that he was an agent of the Saudi Government and that he may have been reporting on the local community to Saudi Government officials. In addition, during its investigation, the FBI discovered that al-Bayoumi has ties to terrorist elements as well.

Osama Bassnan: Bassnan was a very close associate of al-Bayoumi’s, and was in frequent contact with him while the hijackers were in San Diego. Bassnan, a vocal supporter of Usama Bin Ladin, admitted to an FBI asset that he met al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar while the hijackers were in San Diego, but denied this in a later conversation. There is some circumstantial evidence that he may have had closer ties to the hijackers, but the FBI has been unable to corroborate this additional reporting. Bassnan received considerable funding from Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa, supposedly for his wife’s medical treatments. According to FBI documents, Bassnan is a former employee of the Saudi Government’s Educational Mission in Washington, D.C.

Fahad Al-Thumairy: Until recently al-Thumairy was an accredited Saudi diplomat and imam at the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California. The news media reported that the U.S. Government revoked al-Thumairy’s visa in May 2003 ; the diplomat subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia. The FBI now believes that Omar al-Bayoumi met with al-Thumairy at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles before al-Bayoumi went to the restaurant where he met the hijackers. According to witness reporting, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were also taken to the King Fahad Mosque while they were in the United States.

Mohdhar Abdullah: Abdullah was tasked by Omar al-Bayoumi to provide al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar with whatever assistance they needed while in San Diego. Abdullah, who became one of the hijackers’ closest associates in San Diego, translated for them, helped them open bank accounts, contacted flight schools for the hijackers, and helped them otherwise acclimate to life in the United States.

Osama Nooh and Lafi al-Harbi: Al-Harbi and Nooh are Saudi naval officers who were posted to San Diego while hijackers al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were living there. After the September 11th attacks, the FBI determined that al-Hazmi had telephonic contact with both Nooh and al-Harbi while al-Hazmi was in the United States.

Mohammed Quadir-Harunani: Quadir-Harunani has been the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation since 1999 and the FBI is currently investigating whether he had contact with the September 11th hijackers. In June 2000 a call was placed from Transcom International, a company owned by Quadir-Harunani, to a number subscribed to by Said Bahaji, one of the key members of the Hamburg cell. Quadir-Harunani is also a close associate of Usama bin Ladin’s half-brother, Abdullah Bin Ladin (discussed below), who was assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C.-E87 2.

Abdullah Bin Ladin: Abdullah bin Ladin (ABL) is reportedly Usama bin Ladin’s half-brother. He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies in America. Both organizations are local branches of nongovernmental organizations based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is “closely associated with the funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical support to individuals wishing to fight in the Afghan War.” ABL has been assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. as an administrative officer. He is a close associate of Mohammed Quadir Harunani’s and has provided funding for Transcom International.

Fahad Abdullah Saleh Bakala: According to an FBI document, Bakala was close friends with two of the September 11th hijackers. The document also notes that Bakala has worked as a pilot for the Saudi Royal Family, flying Usama Bin Ladin between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia during UBL’s exile.

Hamad Alotaibi: Alotaibi was assigned to the Saudi Embassy Military Division in Washington, D.C. According to an eyewitness report, one of the September 11th hijackers may have visited Alotaibi at his residence; another FBI document notes that a second hijacker may have also visited this address.

Hamid Al-Rashid: Al-Rashid is an employee of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority and was apparently responsible for approving the salary of Omar al-Bayoumi. Hamid al-Rashid is also the father of Saud al-Rashid, whose photo was found in a raid of an al-Qa’ida safehouse in Karachi and who has admitted to being in Afghanistan between May 2000 and May 2001.

Ghassan al-Sharbi: Al-Sharbi is a Saudi student who was taking flight lessons in the Phoenix area before the September 11 attacks and is mentioned in the “Phoenix EC.” The U.S. government captured al-Sharbi in the same location where Abu Zubaida was discovered in early 2002. After Al-Sharbi was captured, the FBI discovered that he had buried a cache of documents nearby, including an envelope from the Saudi embassy in Washington that contained al-Sharbi’s flight certificate.

Saleh Al-Hussayen: According to FBI documents, Saleh Al-Hussayen is a Saudi Interior Ministry employee/official and may also be a prominent Saudi cleric. According to one news article, Saleh Al-Hussayen is the Chief Administrator of the Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina. An FBI affidavit notes that Saleh Al-Hussayen stayed in the same hotel as three of the hijackers on September 10, 2001. He told the FBI that he did not know the hijackers . The FBI agents interviewing him, however, believed he was being deceptive. The interview was terminated when al-Hussayen either passed out or feigned a seizure and was taken to the hospital; he then departed the country before the FBI could reinterview him. Saleh Al-Hussayen is ‘also the uncle of Sami Al -Hussayen (discussed below).

Mohammed Fakihi: Fakihi is a Saudi diplomat. Until recently he was assigned to the Islamic Affairs Section of the Saudi Embassy in Berlin, Germany. Soon after the September 11th attacks, German authorities searched SECRET 3 SECRET 10 the apartment of Munir Motassadeq, an associate of the hijackers in Hamburg , and found Fakihi’s business card. According to press reports , the Saudis did not respond to German requests for information on Fakihi. More recently, German authorities discovered that Fakihi had contacts with other terrorists; Fakihi was subsequently recalled to Saudi Arabia.

Salah Bedaiwi: Bedaiwi is a Saudi Naval officer who was posted to a U .S. Navy base in Pensacola, Florida. He visited the Middle Eastern Market in Miami, a location frequented by several of the hijackers, and was in contact with at least one of the hijackers’ possible associates. The FBI has been investigating these connections, as well as his ties to other terrorist elements.

Mohammed Al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan Al-Shalawi: Al-Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were both Saudi students living in the Phoenix area. Qudhaeein was receiving funding from the Saudi Government during his time in Phoenix. Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were involved in a 1999 incident aboard an America West flight that the FBI’s Phoenix Office now believes may have been a “dry run” for the September 11th attacks. Al-Qudhaeein and Al-Shalawi were traveling to Washington, D.C. to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy; the Saudi Embassy paid for their airfare. According to FBI documents, during the flight they engaged in suspicious behavior, including several attempts to gain access to the cockpit. The plane made an emergency landing in Ohio, but no charges were filed against either individual. The FBI subsequently received information in November 2000 that Al-Shalawi had been trained at the terrorist camps in Afghanistan to conduct Khobar Towertype attacks and the FBI has also developed information tying Al-Qudhaeein to terrorist elements as well.

Ali Hafiz Al-Marri and Maha Al-Marri: Ali Al-Marri was indicted for lying to the FBI about his contact with Mustafa Al-Hasawi, one of the September 11th financiers. Ali Al-Marri, who arrived in the United States shortly before the September 11th attacks, attempted to call Al-Hasawi a number of times from the United States. The FBI has recently received reporting that he may also have been an al:.Qa’ida “sleeper agent.” According to FBI documents, Ali Al-Marri has connections to the Saudi Royal Family. The Saudi Government provided financial support to his wife, Maha Al-Marri, after Ali Al-Marri was detained and assisted her in departing the United States before the FBI could interview her.